"Viatu vya kijivu ni vibaya"
Translation:Gray shoes are bad
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Why not viatu vikijivu or something like that??? Why ekundu becomes mwekundu, but not this one?
Grey is rangi ya kijivu, the colour of ash. Ash is jivu, so the ki- is already something that has been added on. Haven't figured out why yet, but green, kijani (rangi ya kijani, the colour of leaves), is another.
I'm working on a theory, but if anyone who knows turns up in the meantime, hopefully they can elaborate.
Edit to add: I'm being stupid. "Colour of X" formations, X is a noun, not an adjective, so it won't take agreement from another noun.
Yeah, basically -eusi, -eupe and -ekundu are the only colour adjectives. The rest are all nouns.
Is this a cultural regionalism that I should be aware of while in Tanzania or is this just Duo randomly making things up?
It’s a universal truth! ;-) No, I’m pretty sure it’s just a Duolingo sentence. The Swahili course is actually pretty tame compared to some of the others. The German course has “Help! The horse is eating the holy potato!”
A sublime spud to go along with the holy hand-grenade of Antioch, I suppose. Though, to be fair, holy potatoes are rare and the horse in question had a frightful alkaloid allergy.
Yes, it's OK. We managed to stop the horse and rescue 80% of the holy potato, which is now safely housed at RSTM (the Religiously Significant Tubers Museum). The horse was given medical attention and a stern talking to.
